Simon King (television)

Simon King is a British television presenter and cameraman, specialising in nature documentaries.

Simon King was born in Nairobi, Kenya on 27 December 1962 but moved to the UK in 1964 and was raised in Bristol. He has been working in the field of natural history film making for almost 30 years. He began his career as a child actor at the age of ten in such films as "The Fox" and "Secret Place". In 1976 he accompanied naturalist Mike Kendall in the BBC series "Man and Boy", in which they searched the country for Britain's wildlife.

First television films

In 1979, he made his first film for television - "The Willow", a study of the wildlife which surrounds a willow tree. This was broadcast as an episode of the BBC series "The World About Us", as was his following film "The Hidden Land", a study of the wildlife which exists around the hotels in Spain's Costa del Sol. He has since gone on to produce in excess of 80 natural history films as principal cameraman, director, producer and many more as presenter.

Presenting and filming

King made two series of "King's Country" and a series of "King's Country Diary" for the BBC. He was also responsible for BBC Two's Christmas dramatised wildlife documentaries including "Rannoch the Red Deer", "Dusk the Badger", "Shadow the Peregrine" and the programmes "Aliya the Asian Elephant" and "Tyto the Barn Owl", which won industry awards.

He presented the highly successful six-part series "King and Company" and "A Walk on the Wildside" which was two-and-a-half years in the making. Since 1992, King has worked on programmes for the BBC Natural History Unit. His early credits included presenting stints on series such as "Nature Detectives" and "Wild Nights with Simon King", as well as fronting the Unit's occasional live "Watch" broadcasts. He was a regular presenter on BBC Two's "Tracks", fronted "Watch Out" on the same channel and filmed all over the world for "Hot Shots", a series which looked at the making of natural history films.

More recently, King has filmed and co-presented the long-running BBC One series "Big Cat Diary" alongside Jonathan Scott and Saba Douglas-Hamilton, which follows the progress of lions, leopards and cheetahs in the Masai Mara Game Reserve. He also co-presents BBC Two's annual "Springwatch" and "Autumnwatch" series with Bill Oddie and Kate Humble. For these, King films and presents live outside broadcasts from wildlife hotspots around the British Isles, including Shetland, Mull, the London Wetlands Centre and the Somerset Levels.

Recent filming projects include principal camera credits for "Wild Africa" and "The Blue Planet". He has won BAFTA awards for his camerawork on "Life in the Freezer" and "Planet Earth", for which he filmed a celebrated slow-motion sequence of a great white shark leaping out of the water to catch a Cape fur seal.

In 2007 it was announced that King and an assistant had been attacked by a rabid cheetah in Kenya while filming for "Natural World". They were given rabies jabs and did not develop the disease, although the cheetah itself later died. [cite web |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6470825.stm |title=Rabid cheetah bites BBC presenter |publisher=news.bbc.co.uk |date=2007-03-20 ]

Other skills

In addition to his broadcasting and film making career, King has written one book, a number of forewords, scripts for some of David Attenborough's films and is a regular contributor to magazines and newspapers. He is also a qualified scuba diver and enjoys wildlife photography, art, and composing and arranging music. He is on the advisory board of "BBC Wildlife" magazine.

Private life

King is married to his second wife Marguerite Smits Van Oyen, a fellow wildlife film maker. with whom he often works. He has four children, three of them from his first marriage. Apart from watching wildlife he lists his hobbies as drawing and painting, playing the Irish flute, swimming, walking, archery, yoga, astronomy, gardening, cooking and reading.

Programmes

* "Man and Boy" (1976)
* "The World About Us" episodes:: "The Willow" (1981): "The Hidden Land" (1982)
* "King's Country" (1983)
* "Simon King's Country Diary" (1986)
* "King and Company" (1988)
* "Walk on the Wildside" (1992)
* "Nature Detectives" (1993)
* "Bird in the Nest" (1994)
* "BeachWatch" (1994)
* "Watch Out" (1995)
* "Hot Shots" (1995)
* "FlamingoWatch" (1995)
* "Heading South" (1996)
* "Big Cat Diary" (1996)
* "Highland Diary" (1999)
* "Live from Dinosaur Island" (2001)
* "Natural World" episodes:: "Meerkats, Part of the Team" (2002): "Cheetahs, Fast Track to Freedom" (2004): "Toki's Tale" (2007): "Tiger Kill" (2008)
* "Wild In Your Garden" (2003)
* "Britain Goes Wild with Bill Oddie" (2004)
* "Springwatch" (2005)
* "Autumnwatch" (2006)

External links

* [http://www.simonkingwildlife.com Simon King official website]
* [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0455280/ IMDB profile]

References